Monday, November 28, 2011

The Rise of Literary Agencies in India

Who, what, where, why, and how – let’s get into the heart of the literary agency renaissance in India straightaway – since this vocation has, in the recent days, changed the function of the word ‘agent’ as more of a verb or an adjective. So now we have ‘agented’ scripts (that have the stamp of approval from an industry professional before they get to a publisher’s evaluation desk) and ‘non-agented’ or ‘unsolicited’ scripts (that come straight from the author and are usually raw). The latter category seems to be going out of fashion pretty fast with the recent rise of more literary agencies either out of good old ‘binary fission’ or the entry of new professionals into the arena.

Literary agencies usually serve two important purposes if they are good at their job: (a) they separate the wheat from the chaff; and (b) they edit/prune/polish the selected manuscript so that it is ready for publishing, thus reducing the publisher’s work and time investment considerably. In the coming years, some publishers may stop entertaining unsolicited manuscripts altogether.

Most agencies these days do not charge a reading fee as they used to earlier. However, if they accept a project, there is a fee for editorial services (substantive as well as copyediting). Charges vary, depending on the amount of work a script requires, or according to word count. There may be no editorial charges at all for a ready script. Others could cost a good sum if they require more work or a complete overhauling.

Once the process is complete, it is the agent’s job to sell the ready script to a good publisher. Interestingly, a script may take anything between a day and a year (or more) to sell. The agent’s commission varies from 10% to 20% (on the advance and royalty). Some agents have a flat rate for sales in the sub-continent as well as foreign countries, while others charge a slightly higher percentage on the sale of foreign rights. The commission is split with a sub-agent, in case they work with any. These days, since the Indian publishers usually go in for world rights anyway, it shouldn’t be too much of a concern.

Agencies like Siyahi, and Sherna Khambatta’s Literary Agency have been around since 2007. Jacaranda (now in Singapore) has been around since 1997. Writer’s Side began in 2009 and has been growing steadily. There are two new players on the circuit now – Urmila Dasgupta’s Purple Folio.

It is a misconception that if a person has a publishing business alongside a literary agency, it’s bound to be a vanity-publishing business. On the contrary, the businesses are independent and separately run, have separate submission guidelines and processes, and allow a project to be submitted only to one of the two. Their merit/quality can be easily judged since their products are already out there in the public domain.

The genres agents deal with range from fiction to non-fiction, to translations or works in regional languages. Mita Kapur of Siyahi says, ‘Genres don’t limit us, although we are going slow on taking up poetry. Would love to, but publishers have to have a demand for it.’

‘I cannot guarantee placement, but work to the best of my ability to get one,’ says Sherna Khambatta. Urmila Dasgupta is confident of selling most of her scripts. ‘In most cases, yes,’ she says. ‘Only in a few do I wait till the author reworks on his/her own or after I have edited the script and the author has carried out changes to my satisfaction.’

Most of the agencies do have a pretty high success rate. The number of projects a literary agency does in a year ranges from ten to thirty, depending on the resources available to it and the time the negotiations take. If they cannot sell a project within the stipulated time, the rights revert to the author.

Apart from quality control, agents help to expedite the entire process and, as mentioned elsewhere earlier, may be able to get the author some amount of money as an advance if it is a strong script.

If you plan to approach a literary agent, first of all – please make sure that you find a genuine one. There are also agents who charge a fee and then set you up with a vanity publisher. Beware of such offers. Secondly, do make sure that your contract is clear to you, and that you do have an exit route available along with a reversion-of-rights clause in case the agent should fail to sell the script to a publisher within a reasonable period.

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About Me

Publisher, Earthen Lamp Journal.
Editor/instructor, Authorz Coracle.
I review fiction and non-fiction for India Today magazine, the Hindustan Times, Livemint, Biblio, etc (India); the Asian Review of Books (Hong Kong) -- some of the reviews republished by The Asian Writer (UK); the Asia Literary Review (Hong Kong), Wasafiri (UK), the New York Journal of Books (US), and India Currents magazine (US).
Some of my short stories and articles have appeared in various publications such as Out–of-Print magazine, Muse India, Reading Hour, Kindle Magazine, Urban Voice 4, The Bookseller (UK), Scroll, The Hindu Literary Review, the Hindustan Times, Indo-Asian News Service, Pravasi Bharatiya, All About Book Publishing, Book Link, The Publisher’s Post and Chicken Soup for the Indian Couple’s Soul.
I was a finalist for the British Council Young Creative Entrepreneur Award, Publishing, 2010.
Authorz Coracle is a writers' resource, meant for aspiring writers. Details available on: www.authorzcoracle.com.
Earthen Lamp journal is a literary e-journal. Details on www.earthenlampjournal.com